And if you just said “Who?”, are you are not alone. Based on their numbers, referring to either of these guys as a fringe prospect is being extremely generous. Encarnacion could be a fantastic prospect, I suppose, but since he has yet to appear on a Cubs’ roster this year, let alone in any games, it is very difficult to say for certain (his previous years in the DSL suggest he’s no prospect). Juancito De la Cruz has been pitching for DSL Cubs 1, but he has not been pitching well. His 20 innings have come entirely in relief, and in those 20 innings he has 20 walks, 19 strikeouts, an ERA of 6.30, and an opponents batting average of .333. Those are not good numbers.

The good news, then, is that neither of the players who got caught using the drugs are significant prospects (so far as I can tell). The bad news is that this is yet another case of DSL Cubs failing drug tests. It seems this is happening once or twice every season. The players committing the offense are usually very fringe prospects who are very unlikely to be promoted out of the Dominican Leagues, but I still don’t like it. I strongly suspect the offenders are not doing the drugs on the Cubs’ campus, but instead are doing it on their own before they arrive for the season. If that is the case, there may not be much more the Cubs can do about it. Still, I don’t like this trend.

Hopefully the new Cubs’ campus that is under construction in the Dominican Republic will encourage players to stay around and work out year round, thereby perhaps reducing the incidence of PED use by Cubs’ players. I really don’t know what else the Cubs can do. It looks bad, but there it is.

[Peoria] The Chiefs were active on the base paths as well. Chen stole his 24th base of the year. DeVoss stole two bags and now has 26.

[Boise] Su-Min Jung struck out three in two perfect innings of relief.

[Boise] Gioskar Amaya seems to be alright. The Hawks’ second baseman was hit in the head with a pitch earlier in the week, but on Wednesday he returned to the lineup as the DH and finished 2 for 3 with two walks and his fourth home run.

[Arizona] The Cubs pitching was very impressive in this game. Anthony Prieto and Arturo Maltos-Garcia each pitched two no-hit innings at the start of the game. Loiger Padron followed that up with three innings in which he allowed just two hits and struck out three. Alvido Jiminez finished off the game with two more strikeouts over the final two frames.

[Arizona] Shawon Dunston picked up his first AZL stolen base in this game.

Other Minor League Notes

Josh Vitters saw his 16 game hitting streak come to end on Wednesday. He finished this game 0 for 6 with four strikeouts.

BN’er MichiganGoat stopped by to see the Chiefs while they were visiting Western Michigan and he sent back a few observations. First, the base running was not good. Between the run downs and the poor jumps, he said the Chiefs probably ran themselves out of a couple of runs. On the good side, Chadd Krist and Zeke DeVoss both looked at the plate. Baez just looks bigger than a lot of the other guys on the field; he hit the ball pretty hard too. One of the particular highlights for the Chiefs was a beautiful suicide squeeze executed by Oliver Zapata.

Luke, any chance we get a writeup of some of the young international arms in the system with scouting reports?

http://www.bleachernation.com Luke

I’m talking about various of the Cubs’ international arms on practically a daily basis. In terms of a more systemic review, that’s something I’d be more likely to spend some time on in the off season rather than try to shoe-horn it into an already rather full daily wrap up.

But there are likely to be systemic reviews like that coming this winter.

Adam

Raley continuing to try and get into that top 20 Cubs’ pitching list, despite emerging as AAA’s best starter in the past 2 months

My list includes Trey McNutt, simply because I have always thought that he could be a much better RP than SP.

Jackalope

Agreed. He probably could use some time in AA/AAA adjusting to the bullpen before a call up. I think the other guys are about ready to roll.

spearman

Well, if you’re going to have a bad game. Might as well make as awful as you can.

BD

Anybody know what time Soler’s first game is today?

tim815

9 PM central. You can box score wath on milb dot com.

Jackalope

This may have been mentioned recently, but I noticed Javier Baez has been hit 9 times! That’s more than he has walks. Does he crowd the plate, wear serious body armor, or just get opposing pitchers really mad at him?

BD

Yes.

BD

Yes.

But seriously, I know some of those HBP have been intentional. Not sure about the rest.

tim815

I’ve seen him play enough to know that if a pitcher wants to go inside, he’d better go waaaay inside. Inner half he can blast, so you have to get ‘off the plate’ inside to keep him honest. Wildness pluss inside pitching leads to HBP.

Interesting on The Twitters

Beautiful BN Apparel

BN on Video

Post Categories

Site Archives

Get In Touch

Search

Disclaimer

In addition to news, Bleacher Nation publishes both rumor and opinion, as well as information reported by other sources. Information on Bleacher Nation may contain errors or inaccuracies, though we try to avoid them. Links to content and the quotation of material from other news sources are not the responsibility of Bleacher Nation. Photos used either are the property of Bleacher Nation, are used with permission, are fair use, or are believed to be in the public domain. Legitimate requests to remove copyrighted photos not in the public domain will be honored promptly. Comments by third parties are neither sponsored or endorsed by Bleacher Nation.

Bleacher Nation Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. Bleacher Nation is a private media site, and it is not affiliated in any way with Major League Baseball or the Chicago Cubs. Neither MLB nor the Chicago Cubs have endorsed, supported, directed, or participated in the creation of the content at this site, or in the creation of the site itself. It's just a media site that happens to cover the Chicago Cubs.

Bleacher Nation is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.